This is becoming a really frustrating exercise, Mr. Chair.
I listened to my colleagues' interventions. I have the utmost respect for my colleague, Ms. Khalid, but this particular amendment doesn't speak to the continuum of criminal justice as it relates to victims of this extremely serious, heinous offence.
In the hierarchy of offences, when we're talking about something that's aggravated, we're getting very close to homicide levels. In fact, an aggravated assault—in this case, an aggravated sexual assault—really, in the hierarchy of offences, is one notch below that of a homicide. That's how seriously the House of Commons, Parliament, has decided over several decades to treat this offence.
While I agree with Ms. Khalid and am glad to hear that Mississauga is taking the appropriate steps to ensure wraparound services for victims, this is about restoring justice back into sentencing. Right now, in my view—and I'm sure that the officials will agree with me—sentencing is an art. It's not a mathematical equation. I see some heads shaking, so I'm not going to ask anyone specifically, but we're going to agree with that in principle. Judges already take into consideration the personal circumstances of an offender. What we don't want to see happening here is for some activist jurist somewhere in Canada....
I'm going to repeat this because it bears repeating: There is no minimal standard by which Canadian judges uniformly sentence on criminal matters in this country. It depends on appointment. It depends on region. It depends on filling quotas. DEI, which should never exist in our judicial appointment process, unfortunately still exists. We want to get back to the point of merit, where it doesn't matter about your orientation, your colour of skin, your religion or the legal work that you have contributed to certain underprivileged classes of individuals in your community. It should be based on legal merit.
I'm actually glad that there are some provincial governments in this country that are focusing in on a merit-based application. However, that means we have a huge discrepancy when it comes to sentencing. All we're asking this committee to consider is to give a baseline for consideration when you're dealing with the most serious form of sexual assault on another human being. Exclude that from any judicial discretion so that on the basis of stare decisis, of precedent value, future judges in similar circumstances will know that the mandatory minimum penalty is a threshold that we, as parliamentarians, set as a base standard.
There are going to be cases on the lower end of the spectrum where the minimum penalty is absolutely appropriate, but there are going to be cases—and I had cases as well—where the mandatory minimum penalty will be woefully inadequate in the circumstances.
All we're asking, again, is that we as parliamentarians give judges the appropriate direction that we, as a supreme entity.... It's not the judges who makes laws; it's us, as parliamentarians, who make laws, and they interpret those laws that we have established as a threshold that we will not deviate from. I think this is a great opportunity for us to take the appropriate stand.
Thank you, Chair.